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| Criterion |  Agile Affinity Estimation |  Operations Bottleneck Analysis |  Agile Bucket System |  Operations Theory of Constraints |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Purposedifferent | When many tasks need to be classified quickly, it sorts them by perceived effort and similarity. It reduces the effort of fine-grained estimation for large volumes. | For a flow that backs up at one point, the method looks for the capacity limit with the greatest leverage. It explains why extra effort elsewhere barely improves throughput. | When a large batch of work needs a fast, rough estimate, it sorts items into predefined size buckets. It sorts work by value, risk, and delivery ability. The result is captured as a Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, and Split Candidates. | For a system that does not get faster despite effort, the method directs attention to the bottleneck. It concentrates improvement on the point that actually limits throughput. |
Complexitydifferent | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
Timedifferent | 30-90 min | 1-3 h | 30-90 min | 2-4 h Analyse, laufend |
Participantsdifferent | 3-12 | 3-8 | 3-12 | 3-12 |
Formatdifferent | Workshop | Workshop + async | Workshop | Workshop + async |
Outputdifferent | Affinity Size Map, Grouped Estimates, Unclear Items | Bottleneck Map, Flow Metrics, Improvement Options, Follow-up Measures | Bucketed Backlog, Relative Estimates, Split Candidates | Constraint Map, Improvement Plan, Flow Metrics |
Tagsno overlap | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | FlowMeasurementConstraints | EstimationBacklogRelative sizing | OperationsConstraintsFlowImprovement |